


Doctors and Nurses

by Pollydoodles



Series: The Wider Pizza-Verse [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5955391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve rolled over, and into Bucky. </p><p>“Umpf, wha- Bucky?” His nose had met Bucky’s shoulder, thankfully not the metal one, and the dark-haired man looked back at him. </p><p>“Are you awake now?” Bucky implored, and poked a finger into Steve’s chest to emphasise the question. How long have you been waiting? The thought flashed across Steve’s mind briefly as his body tried to wake him up properly. He squinted up at Bucky, whose head was gently haloed by the weak early morning light that peaked through Steve’s blinds, and was staring back at him intently. </p><p>Steve rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes. He was pretty good at getting up on the fly; it was certainly true that old habits died hard and it was the most true of anyone who’d spent time in the forces, but his brain was having trouble coping with the early awakening coupled with Bucky insistently jabbing a finger into his chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctors and Nurses

Steve rolled over, and into Bucky. 

“Umpf, wha- Bucky?” His nose had met Bucky’s shoulder, thankfully not the metal one, and the dark-haired man looked back at him. 

“Are you awake now?” Bucky implored, and poked a finger into Steve’s chest to emphasise the question. How long have you been waiting? The thought flashed across Steve’s mind briefly as his body tried to wake him up properly. He squinted up at Bucky, whose head was gently haloed by the weak early morning light that peaked through Steve’s blinds, and was staring back at him intently. 

Steve rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes. He was pretty good at getting up on the fly; it was certainly true that old habits died hard and it was the most true of anyone who’d spent time in the forces, but his brain was having trouble coping with the early awakening coupled with Bucky insistently jabbing a finger into his chest.

“What’s up, pal?” Steve grabbed Bucky’s hand and pushed it gently away as he spoke, shuffling up so that he was sitting upright against the headboard next to the other man. 

“Darcy’s sick.” 

Deep blue eyes bored into Steve’s and he felt rather than saw the panic in Bucky. Steve narrowed his eyes. He knew Bucky cared for Darcy, wasn’t sure how far it reached – didn’t think, honestly, that his friend really understood what he felt for the snarky brunette who had unofficially adopted his best friend, no questions asked. Bucky had, sometimes, a lot in common with Barton’s dog. A loyalty to certain people than ran deeper than the man could really comprehend. Some kind of innate primal feeling that kept him tagging along behind Darcy, tied to her emotions whether he really understood or not. 

Steve tried to refocus; forcing his sleepy brain into working order. 

“Whaddya mean, Darcy’s sick? Where is she?” Steve huffed out, reaching for the glass of water he kept by the bed. Bucky sat next to him, muscles coiled and tensed the way Steve’s would be if he were in a pre-mission briefing. Worried. Concerned. Scared, maybe. 

“Common room.” Bucky choked out, body tight and ready for action. 

That gave Steve pause for thought. Darcy was not, unless forced, an early riser. Unlike himself, who could – and happily would – wake with the birds, or Bucky who was pretty much permanently in fight or flight mode and could go from zero to top speed in less time than it would take most people to blink awake, Darcy preferred the comfort of her bed unless there was a seriously good better offer. Steve hadn’t yet worked out what that better offer would be. 

“Okay, let’s go check her out.” 

Bucky nodded fervently and pulled back the covers, exposing Steve’s body to the cool early morning air. He shivered, clad only in boxers, and then threw himself out of the bed, pulling on previously discarded track suit bottoms and an old t-shirt. Darcy didn’t stand on ceremony at the best of times, he couldn’t imagine her taking offence at his clothing if she was ill. 

“I’m not dying, Buck.” Darcy coughed her way through the words. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, her upturned nose red and sore-looking. Steve passed her the tissue box and she took it gratefully, pulling the blanket up further towards her chin as she did so. She was huddled on the couch, wrapped in two blankets that Bucky had procured – read, stolen – for her. She shivered regardless, and Steve could tell she was trying to hold it back, not to worry them. Not to worry Bucky. 

Bucky crouched at her side, resting against the couch, and fixed her with a gaze that was half-calculating, half-anxious. His deep blue eyes darted across her prone body as she sniffled and coughed, taking in every aspect. Steve wondered if Bucky remembered keeping watch over him as he suffered from yet another viral flu, yet another episode that confined him shivering and shaking to bed, unable to function properly. 

“Buck, can you get Darcy some water? I think she needs some.” Steve asked, laying a hand on Bucky’s shoulder as he spoke. The dark-haired man flipped his head towards Steve at the sound of his voice, then pulled himself gracefully to his feet, before dropping a tender hand across Darcy’s forehead. He nodded, more to himself than anyone else, and then propelled himself towards the kitchen. 

“He doesn’t- he doesn’t understand, Darce.” Steve said in a low voice, hoping Bucky couldn’t catch the words as he hunted for a clean glass. 

“It’s a cold, Steve, what’s to understand?” She answered, confused. 

“It’s flu, actually” He corrected her sharply, and Darcy flipped her heard to stare at him. “I should know, I had enough of ‘em,” He continued, wryly, and she flicked a hand limply at him, letting him know what little she thought of his diagnosis, but unable to muster the strength or will to do more. “He doesn’t understand because he can’t get sick. Like I can’t get sick.”

Darcy fixed him with a befuddled look, eyebrows knit together and sniffing hard, trying her best to appear less ill than she really was. 

“The serum.” He tried to explain. “It runs too quick, it- well, you’ve seen me recover from wounds that would take others weeks to get over.” 

She swatted at him for doing it, but without much power behind it. Just enough to let him know she didn’t appreciate him trying to baby her. He continued regardless.

“It just, I don’t know, replicates stuff so quick that viruses and whatever else don’t stand a chance.”

“So, you’re gonna live forever, huh?” 

Her voice cracked and she coughed hard as she finished, doubling up on herself and hacking into the blanket. He rubbed her back in what he hoped was a soothing manner as her lungs continued to wrack her body in big, sweeping motions. Bucky had done the same for him, way back two lifetimes ago, when he’d been gripped with bad asthma, when the cold had seeped into every bone in his body and torn the breath from his lungs and there was nothing Steve could do to stop it. 

“Huh. Maybe. I guess.”

Steve didn’t like to think about it. It had been hard enough going into the ice and finding the world had moved on seventy years since he’d closed his eyes and let the cold creep up his body and into his brain. He didn’t really want to have to consider that he might have an eternity stuck watching the world move on around his fixed point, looking on helplessly as the people he loved grew old, suffered and died. Maybe even forgot him in the process of doing so, whilst he had no option but to remember every excruciating moment of it.

Darcy fixed him with a hard look, and he thought fleetingly that she’d picked up more from Bucky than maybe she’d realised. Than even Steve had realised. That thousand yard stare that really should only belong to soldiers, Darcy had it, at times. He wasn’t sure she realised what she was liable to pull out at times, but then again, she’d seen more than her fair share of weird and difficult. Maybe it wasn’t only reserved for soldiers. Maybe Darcy was more of a solider than he allowed. 

Maybe she could read him better than he gave her credit for. Maybe better than he gave most people credit for. 

“Oh man, I think I might be sick.”

Okay, maybe not.

“Buck!” He shouted, hand massaging Darcy’s shoulder in sympathy and hoping fervently that she wouldn’t chuck up before they could do something about it. “Bring a bowl, would ya?”

Bucky obediently appeared instantly at Darcy’s shoulder with both water – a pitcher, with ice, and a glass – and a large bowl. He lays the bowl carefully on Darcy’s stomach, she grips it with loose fingers and a grateful small smile, and he dumps everything else he’s brought over on the floor next to the couch. 

Darcy smiles pitifully and grasps at Bucky’s shoulder. The nearest one to her. It’s metal, and hard. Steve swallows hard as it seems to make no difference to Darcy that she can’t really grasp onto Bucky’s arm. It seems to bring her some comfort and she gazes up at his friend as though Steve doesn’t exist. For his part, Bucky draws the blanket up further from where it’s slipped as she’s been talking to Steve. 

He feels like a spare wheel. 

And he’s kind of okay about that. 

“I’m-“ Darcy struggles to form the words. “I’m so cold.” She shuffled down and drew the blankets further up around her, body shivering visibly under the blankets. Bucky moved before Steve could even blink. He leaned forward and bodily lifted Darcy, ignoring her surprised squeak as he clasped her waist and shifted her forward. 

Having made space, he dropped himself gracefully into it and drew his legs up either side of Darcy’s small body, caging her in. Putting his flesh hand gently across her stomach, he pulled her back so that she was braced up against his chest. At that point, Steve got it. They both ran hotter than the average person, all serum-driven. The way it burned through them and forced their metabolisms to hit crazy speeds also meant that they were, more or less, portable human heat sources. 

Darcy let out a quiet sigh as her shivering frame met Bucky’s fierce body heat and let her head drop back against his shoulder. For his part, Bucky rested one arm across her stomach and pushed back the sweaty strands of hair from her clammy forehead. Steve watched on, swallowing hard and fighting a solid lump in his throat as memory after memory hit him like a freight train. 

Bucky – all Bucky. 

Days after days of Bucky taking care of him. Sick again, Stevie? Bucky forcing him into bed as Steve protested fiercely, despite barely being able to form the words around yet another asthma attack rattling his fragile chest. Bucky trying – and failing epically – to replicate his mother’s beef broth, but it being somehow okay anyway because at least it was hot even if it didn’t taste quite right. Bucky sitting up with him in the early hours of the morning, rubbing his back and telling him it was okay, that Bucky didn’t really need the sleep, that he was a night owl and operated better on less sleep, so why not stay up with Steve again. 

Steve didn’t know if Bucky remembered all that, not properly. The man had a deep-seated loyalty to him, but Steve thought privately, as much as he wanted it to be otherwise, for the moment at least it was almost like a muscle memory. Not something he actually remembered, but something so ingrained in him that he followed the feelings anyway. He hoped – prayed, really – damn near every day that Bucky would gain his memories back, that they could once again share the good times, the sad times, the rock bottom times and the ridiculous highs that came from such small things. 

Steve’s prayers were muscle memory now too, for the most part, and he tried to ignore that, despite the improvements Bucky had undoubtedly made, there was an ever growing knot in his stomach that woke him at night and whispered that Bucky was never really coming back, not the way Steve remembered. But this – seeing Bucky tender and caring, albeit still as stoically quiet as ever, was so reminiscent of the young man Steve had mourned for so long – this gave him a flutter of hope in his heart. 

He was almost glad that Darcy had gotten sick. 

She broke that thought with another harsh round of coughing and he felt instantly awful for thinking it, hearing the grate in her throat as it rubbed her sore and painful. Bucky held her as she coughed, then reached down to bring up the ice water to her lips, keeping it still as she sipped at it briefly before her head dropped again. 

“So… So sleepy.” She mumbled, and tucked her head into Bucky’s chest, turning her body slightly to do so within the confines of his embrace. 

Steve opened his mouth to tell her to give into that, that it would make her feel better, that sleep was the number one thing she absolutely needed right now, and was beaten to the chase. 

“Sleep.” 

It was a command, really, the way it rumbled out of his friend’s chest, but it was accompanied by a tender movement of Bucky’s index finger against her temple. Darcy’s eyes fluttered as she contemplated fighting the creeping feeling that spread across her body, but the feel of Bucky’s chest rising and falling gently behind her head and the cool of his metal finger against her forehead lulled her into sleep with no further comment. 

Bucky dropped his head to his chest after a moment, his forehead nudging against Darcy’s cheek as she slept. Steve could see Bucky’s eyes start to droop as well, and his lips quirked a smile. He’d long since accepted that Bucky slept far less than the average insomniac and, short of knocking him clean out – not that he hadn’t considered that option a number of times, there was little he could do about it. If Bucky could find some comfort in Darcy’s slumber, that could only be a good thing. 

Steve tugged the blankets up and over Bucky as well and stood for a moment, gazing down at the pair. Darcy’s small hand had tangled its way into Bucky’s metal one, pink and warm flush against slivery and cold, and he could see their breathing was matched evenly, a steady rise and fall that belied Darcy’s current poor health. 

“You sleep,” He murmured, looking down at them. “You sleep, and take comfort where you can.” He couldn’t be too sure which of them he was addressing. Perhaps a little of both. Darcy was a great kid but meeting Bucky had seemed to ground her where she had been flightier before. Bucky was undeniably more settled with Darcy around. If it wasn’t for the absurdity of the situation; a brain-washed should-a-been veteran with an astonishingly high likelihood of murderous relapse trailing after a mouthy, wholly twenty-first century girl whose first act of friendship had been to introduce Bucky to Netflix and online pizza-delivery; Steve would have had to call it sweet. 

Sweet wasn’t really the right word, but he was damned if he knew what was. 

“Are we having a duvet day or something?”

Steve’s internal reverie was interrupted by Barton’s cheerful, unassuming tones, spinning on his heels he turned to face the archer and hissed across the room towards him. “Wake them and I’ll break every arrow you own. Twice.”

Hands up and palms out in a conciliatory fashion, Barton mouthed a heavily sarcasm-tinged sorry towards the Captain and continued on to search the fridge for leftovers. Steve ran a heavy hand through his hair and wondered what best he could do. 

Clint fell into step beside him, thoughtfully chewing on the remains of Tuesday night’s pasta bake and looking down at the pair now tumbled together on the couch. Steve glanced at the other man and opted not to mention that Tuesday was five days ago. Barton probably wouldn’t care even if he did say. 

“Lucozade.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Lucozade.” Barton repeated, sagely, cheeks full of pasta as he mumbled around the words. “Gets the blood pumping. Sugar boost. Great for flu.”

“Oh. Okay.” Steve added it to his mental shopping list. 

“Are they ever gonna-“ 

Steve interrupted the archer, feeling heat flush across his face as he did so. “They’re fine the way they are, Barton.” He whispered harshly, trying not to wake the sleeping bodies crashed out in front of him. “They’re just… they’re just being and no one has to force them into anything else, just let them be.”

Barton threw him a confused look before responding. 

“O-kay,” he drew out the word, still sucking down old pasta like his life depended on it. “I just wondered if I was ever gonna have access to the couch. The Sons of Anarchy season premiere is on in 4 hours.”


End file.
